My understanding is that a good chunk of the TORN tokens issued by "DAO" are earmarked for developers of TC, and these token could be sold for money, etc.
Plus the initial developers could run relay nodes to make money, and can even do it in a way that is basically impossible to prove, by using TC itself when withdrawing the profits made by their relay nodes. Back before sanctions, even at a centralized exchange, nobody would think anything is odd about TC developers exchanging out coins previously transferred through the TC system. After all they care about privacy and don't want people to be able to trace back to all their previous transactions.
They profited from issuance of the TORN token but they did not take fees out of every deposit. Relayers are the ones who receive fees for withdrawals (about 0.1 ETH) and depending on your point of view could be unlicensed money transmitters (and if they are still operating after Tornado was designated then sanctions violators).
The people who did deploy the contracts did it out of the goodness of their hearts? that seems..odd.